Things That Darken You
by eden alice
Summary: Sometimes it hurts more with every breath. A Ronnie and Jack one shot.


Things That Darken You

She drags the cool stainless steel knife gently against the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. Sometimes when she finds herself alone in the kitchen a morbid curiosity eats away at any normality. She stares and absorbs the shine of the freshly washed bade, the way her skin turns white and then red as she scratches intricate patterns.

She thinks about all of the things she normally tries not to think about until she increases the pressure just enough so that the knife breaks the skin. And then she feels guilty because she wants to deepen the cut and watch her life spill on the floor but there are people who depend on her, because she is stronger than that. She feels guilty, but teases the blade across her skin all the same.

She knows she is no longer the woman she used to be and never will be no matter how many anti-depressants she swallows. Because there are some things that change you and there is no going back. There are some things that darken you.

She wears more make-up some days, and she is not sure why. She paints herself up to the image she wants to see in the mirror. She often forgets to eat but finds alcohol easier to swallow. At the very least she can control her own body and stop people seeing the fractures beneath the façade. At least she can do that.

Some days it hurts to look at him. Because he sees the shadows around her. And they transpose onto him in the charcoal beneath his eyes and the furrows in his brow. Because he does not know what to do or how to reach out for the glimmer of light buried deep inside. He is not even sure it is his place anymore. He grants her, her dignity, her space. She knows all of this. Believes this and doesn't believe it. Wants him to ask.

On the darkest nights she curls up tight beneath the covers, feeling the familiar tension and vulnerability in her stomach as her armour falls away. On those nights she can't see an end to darkness and can't fathom how she can put herself back together again. And she aches for him, tries to remember the sound of his even breathing or the warmth from his body as he slept next to her. She imagines that he somehow knows she is hurting and desperate and comes for her.

But these are blind imaginings because in the end, in the cold light of day she doesn't want to go through with it. If he comes to her he will come again and again, and she will be forced to face herself. To watch herself mirrored in his thickly lined face and slowly and excruciatingly enumerate what has really happened to her. She would have to explain the scratches on her wrist. And for now she is not even sure why she does it.

The colder she gets, the further he moves away. She knows it is a masochistic pattern, knows self-destruction when she sees it. It is nothing new; she has just got better at it. But she simply cannot let him come near. He reaches for her and she walks away. And on the rare occasion that she can't turn an equally cold shoulder on herself, she cries.

****

She loses it one blustery afternoon as he sits grinning fondly at his daughter, her niece, as he holds her to his chest. He looks up at her and he knows she was quietly turning inside out in front of him. Knows she is thinking about the daughter who died in her arms. He reaches out and takes her hand ignoring the shouts from the rest of her family from the other room.

She wanted to melt and she wanted to throw-up. And she stood there for the longer than she should have because he can feel her shaking and her sister is watching from the doorway. Then she turned and left and kept on walking and walking till she reached an unfamiliar building and leans against the rough concrete and cries. Not for the death she left behind but for the living dead inside.

She repapered at the pub two hours later with dirt stains on the back of her top. He didn't even ask where she had been.

He didn't fucking ask.

****

She sits on the wooden bench in the middle of the square thinking about the price of the new designer dress that she shouldn't have paid for, but there was something about the way it touched her skin that she couldn't let go. She can hardly remember what she had planned for the day; she had started to drift a little that way.

She can't focus as the local's fire their drink orders at her across the bar. He notices and seems to take it personally as if she can't bear to be around him.

It was his turn to look after Amy today.

So she is half-terrified when his hand hits her shoulder and her bag tumbles across the floor, but no one makes a move to pick its contents up. He half smiles an apology and he sits down besides her. She starts to ask why he is here but for some reason she doesn't speak. His eyes are dark and they're watching her, watching her with the same threat at their edges as the sky holds of rain. But somewhere in them they are asking, they are asking 'what hurts?'

The wind blows against her cheek and he touches the edge of her hair.

She's trembling, exposed, wanting to run and determined not to cry.

She's wearing too much make-up today.

Somehow in a mere moment she is all open wounds and breaking.

"Ronnie? I don't know what to do. Just please, talk to me."

The spider web of issues and tragedy and double-edged swords seem to melt under his touch and the reasons she can't just cry are as messed up in her head she struggles to cling to them. Only the tightness in the most intimate centre of her stomach remains. But she stays there on the bench with him anyway, and his eyes keep looking at her. She is not quiet sure how the words slip past her lips.

"I want it to stop hurting. I want to be able to breath."

And then her face is against his palm and his arm is across her back, but all she can feel is the pain and the wind and her own cold tears against his warm skin, and the vague gnawing that she will pay for this later.

Or maybe she is paying for it now in how much it still hurts to let him hold her.

And maybe she can carry on breathing for a while but she still thinks about the sharpest knife in the kitchen draw.


End file.
